


My Ghost

by egosoffire



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 04:24:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18024632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/egosoffire/pseuds/egosoffire
Summary: An abused child is saved by a ghost. That ghost followed him to the worst moments of his life.  Now, that child's grown and understands.





	My Ghost

**Author's Note:**

> Please note mentioned / implied child abuse in the warning.

“He drank a lot,” Tony murmurs, a tormented look playing over his face. “Until I was about ten. He was wasted when he wasn’t being  _ the _ Howard Stark. He - he took out his aggression on my mom... me... both of us.”

Stephen nods. He knows this story, better than Tony can imagine.

“I think, no, I know that no one except my mother and I knew,” Tony adds, the words low. An abrupt laugh leaves him. “Until now, at least. He was abusive and suddenly, he stopped.”

Their eyes meet, for just a flash, and Stephen knows that Tony knows. Tony takes a step forward and places a hand on Stephen’s cheek, guiding his boyfriend’s gaze to meet his own. “There was a bad incident, right before I turned ten,” he says, fingers brushing along Stephen’s cheek bone. “He hurt me and suddenly looked like he’d seen a ghost.”

Stephen tenses and when he does, Tony pulls him into a hug, holding his face pressed against Stephen’s shoulder. “He went down to his knees,” Tony says into Stephen’s robes. “He looked at me and I swear to god, something terrified him. I had never seen such soul-splitting terror. He took off, and he never laid a hand on me again.”

“That’s quite a story,” Stephen whispers, fingers fluttering over the back of Tony’s head.

“Not to say he became Father of the Year,” Tony murmurs, “but my mother and I felt safe again. He was cold, he was distant, but he quit drinking to excess. He stopped hurting us.”

“Did he ever say why?” Stephen knows Tony knows, but he does not want to confess.

“A ghost,” Tony murmurs. “My mother told me he had nightmares for years to come of a ghost. A ghost that did something to him, showed him the darkest possibilities in the universe. A ghost who opened his mind and undid him.”

Stephen remembers the day he injected himself into Tony Stark’s timestream. 

It was after the war and after Thanos. He had his mind set on Tony while doing something everyday, the recovered time stone in his possession once again. The stone had a mind of its own, and needed him to correct a lapse, a complication.

Something had heaved him into Tony’s timeline and he observed, paralyzed, as a man crushed the trust of the child who adored him.

“It was the stone,” he says, making his confession at last. “It was disturbed when I had it in my hands again. I wasn’t  paying any mind to the shifts. I had rebuilding to do, and I had wielded it before Thanos. It didn’t frighten me to sense shifts in the surrounding energy. I live in a place of continuous shifts, honestly.”

Tony nods.

“So, I ignored it, and you were on my mind. I was falling for you, then. It seemed a thing I couldn‘t prioritize in a rebuilding world, but I kept thinking of you, my love for you. Suddenly, something shifted me through the time stream. I landed in your timeline.”

“What do you mean?”

“I fell, endlessly,” whispers Stephen. “I was terrified, until I recognized that it was the stone. Then, I collapsed, and I was with Maria Stark as she gave birth to a son.”

“My mom?”

“I knew her right away. She looked so much like you. Tony, you should have seen her smile when she first laid eyes on you.”

Tony knows the smile Stephen’s speaking about. His mother’s smiles were so rare that when she did, her son remembered and cherished them. She was beautiful when she grinned, but her joy was often an oddity.

“I saw you come into this world, Tony.”

“And you didn’t try to stop it?” Tony jokes, an exhausted, self-deprecating joke. Stephen hates it, but knows that he can’t say a word. Not now.

“Then, it hurled me to another date in time. He was hurting you. You were very scared…”

Stephen knows that he needs to reign in his grief. Tony was the one who‘s father had abused him, the one who had suffered at the hands of the father he loved. Still, he could feel his heart breaking over again at the memory of that terrified child.

“I reached out,” he declared, “and tried to protect you. Then, the stone sent me to a moment where you were about ten and he hurt you again.”

“The moment you appeared to him.”

“I cannot express my rage,” Stephen admitted. “Apprehensive of the consequences but unwilling to back away, I vowed to do something about it and I did. I entered his mind and showed him terrible things - hell dimensions, beasts, demons. When he was terrified enough, I promised to let them feast on him forever if he laid a hand on you, or your mother again. I pledged that I would consume his soul from the inside out.”

Tony shudders at that. Stephen has an enormous heart, but he has seen firsthand how vengeful he can be.

“Rage overwhelmed me,” Stephen whispers, observing the effect his words have on Tony. “I could not control it, after feeling the fear you had been through.”

“That’s not the only time you dove into my timeline, is it?” Tony asks, an immediate realization washing over him. “How did I not remember until now? I…” His eyes go wide and he knows he’s dealing with the paradox of time travel. He can not vocalize what’s passing through his head, though.

“I wound up in Afghanistan with you,” Stephen agrees. “You were working on the suit. I didn’t immediately make myself known to you. I remained close, held onto your hand and awaited the inevitable moment when I’d be pulled out of that moment.”

“Then when my reactor was poisoning me, you posed as a hallucination.”

The memory came clear in Tony’s mind. It had been a private night, and he’d been alone in his bed. He had accepted the hallucination as part of his slow death, a man, just beside his bed, examining him with pain in his eyes.

“That hallucination told me he loved me,” Tony mumbles.

“It did, and it does...”

Tony laughs as a slew of memories run through his head. They seem fresh, like time has just invented them, but also like he’s always known. “Are these real memories?” he asks. “I mean, I know that you went into my timestream, but I feel like I’ve known you all my life now.”

“Time is unusual,” Stephen murmurs, as he sees Tony remember.

“I remember my ghost now,” Tony says. “Not just the ghost who kept me safe, but the one who held my hand when I hit all these great lows…”

“I remember too.”

“But now, I have a question,” he whispers. “Did my father stop when I was ten? Because, I remember him stopping, pulling away from any closeness, as if to protect himself from falling to temptation… but, is that an actual memory, or did he never stop? Did he continue until he died, or I could defend myself... or…”

The workings of a panic attack were washing over Tony’s features. Stephen couldn’t have that, not when he was uncertain of the answers that the gifted man in his arms sought. “I don’t know,” he whispers, bringing Tony close and pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I meant it when I said time is remarkable. It doesn’t work in as linear a fashion as one might hope. I know, though, that because of what I did, you at this point and time have been through only what you remember. If there was another path, I removed that. I don’t know if it was for the better, or worse." 

“I think it had to have been for better.”

“I hope so.”

Stephen hugs close, and Tony leans close, feeling grateful for his ghost. The ghost he’s had since he was young. His ghost saved him and continued to love him. 


End file.
